Sounds of science: A limpet's tongue licks a rock to shreds

There's no tongue on Earth rougher than a limpet's. Covered in hundreds of tiny teeth, it scrapes rock to shreds with every lick, so the limpet can feed on the microorganisms that live there.

And it's a good thing it does. Without limpets eating through the rocky surface our intertidal zones would soon be overrun with a blanket of algae, leaving little room for other species.

It's the limpet's key role as keepers of marine biodiversity in this zone that interests researchers like University of Sydney PhD student Aline Sbizera Martinez.

Ms Martinez made this recording as part of a study to see if the copper-based anti-fouling paint used on boats affected limpet feeding behaviour.

Most studies on the effect of copper on limpets are done in a lab, "and the limpets die within a few days" says Ms Martinez. "Limpets don't do well in labs".

So she took her waterproof microphone and copper paint to the sea to see how the 'limpet vs copper' challenge played out in the wild.

By painting borders around some rocky areas and recording the feeding of limpets within the copper-painted boundaries and those at a distance, she was able to compare the total number of feeding scrapes in both groups.

She found "no effect on feeding behaviour", so it looks like limpets are a lot more resilient to copper paint on their home turf.

She also found it almost impossible to hold a microphone next to a limpet without hitting the thing every time a wave came, which explains the regular knocking sound in the recording above.

More work is needed to determine if the copper-based paint has a negative effect over the longer term, or on other behaviours, like reproduction.

But is Martinez up for the job? Hundreds more hours holding a microphone next to a limpet while a friend yells 'wave' at every breaker?

"If the progress of my investigations depends on it, let's hit the water!"